Revisiting Julian Assange

February 10, 2013

A piece by
Julian Assange published last November catalogs the malevolent machinations
of the U.S. government as revealed by thousands of U.S. State Department cables
released by Wikileaks. Reading it, one cannot help but discern whose
interests U.S. foreign policy actually serves. (SPOILER ALERT! It is
not We the People.)

Yet a curious thing often happens when I mention Wikileaks: people express a visceral disgust for Julian
Assange, even though in context he is personally irrelevant. Why?
Well, the press campaign to
smear him has been relentless and nearly universal — and it is worth
noting that it long preceded the sexual abuse allegations against him. Years before Wikileaks dropped its first
bombshell, the Pentagon issued a report deeming it an “enemy
of the state” and set out to
destroy its credibility and reputation. But the Pentagon did not need to do anything: U.S. and U.K. “journalists” descended on
Assange with a vengeance, exhibiting a pettiness and personal animosity
bordering on deranged. Rather than focusing
on the monumental threat to press freedoms at stake in any U.S. prosecution of
Assange, instead we learn about
his dirty socks, his alleged toilet habits, uncorroborated musings on his assumed
motives and amateur psychological diagnoses by Assange’s enemies. Glenn Greenwald put it this way:

“By putting his own liberty and security at risk to
oppose the world's most powerful factions, Assange has clearly demonstrated
what happens to real adversarial dissidents and insurgents – they're
persecuted, demonized, and threatened, not befriended by and invited to parties
within the halls of imperial power – and he thus causes many journalists to
stand revealed as posers, servants to power, and courtiers…nothing triggers
their rage like fundamental critiques of, and especially meaningful opposition
to, the institutions of power to which they are unfailingly loyal.”

With a minimally functional adversarial press, there would be no need for
Wikileaks. But the establishment press,
as its name suggests, serves the establishment.

A second curious thing occurs when I mention Wikileaks: almost invariably the unevidenced assertion is
made that Assange sought asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London only to avoid questioning by Swedish
authorities on the sexual assault allegations.
Worse, prominent feministwriters
have uncritically endorsed the Fleeing Rapist narrative, as if there were
nothing else of importance going on that long preceded the sexual assault
allegations. What I find most troubling
is the implication that one cannot be a defender of Assange’s rights as a
political prisoner and also advocate
that he face justice in Sweden: defenders
of his asylum request have been accused of being “rape apologists,”
despite repeatedly asserting that Assange should be subjected to questioning by
Swedish investigators, and charged and tried if warranted — just like any other
accused offender.

But this is manifestly not what Swedish prosecutors are after. If they were, they could interview Julian
Assange at the embassy in London today: interrogating suspects abroad is, in
fact, a
routine matter for Swedish prosecutors. They could question him, today, via Skype. They could interview him today in Sweden, provided they guarantee he will
not be extradited to face the U.S. legal system — once the envy of the world,
now a Kafkaesque
nightmare — where Assange would
face espionage charges that could put him in a supermax prison for
decades for committing the heinous crime of...journalism. This is hardly unprecedented: the U.S. imprisoned a Sudanese
journalist for Al Jazeera at Guantanamo for six years, without charges.

Assange sought asylum from Ecuador only after a U.K. court determined that
he should be extradited to Sweden. (This
is the same U.K., by the way, that refused to
extradite Augusto Pinochet, the architect of a mass rape,
torture and murder regime.) While
it would be a welcome development if U.K. authorities were serious about seeking
justice for sexual assault victims, the reality is quite the opposite. In an extraordinary editorial in The Guardian last August, Women Against Rape, a U.K.
advocacy group supporting women and girls who were subjected to sexual abuse (including
asylum seekers), took an unequivocal stand against Assange’s extradition, noting:

“In over 30 years working with thousands of rape victims who are seeking
asylum from rape and other forms of
torture, we have met nothing but obstruction from British governments. Time
after time, they have accused women of lying and deported them with no concern
for their safety. We are currently working with three women who were raped
again after having been deported – one of them is now destitute, struggling to
survive with the child she conceived from the rape…

“Like women in Sweden and everywhere, we want rapists
caught, charged and convicted. We have campaigned for that for more than 35
years, with limited success.”

Does that sound like a country that takes justice for sexual assault victims
seriously?

“I don’t know why they do that...It’s very easy to
fall into the trap of thinking that if you support Wikileaks then you must
support Assange at all costs. And I
think that’s basically what’s going on.
Even if they really should know better, because again if you look at
accusations they’re not anything that falls outside of the realm of even
questionable assault. If they’re true, they’re obviously assault. So I really
just think it’s one of those situations where they may not know the details,
but more importantly they may be ignoring inconvenient information, because
they have fallen into the trap of thinking that support Wikileaks equals
support Julian Assange.”

The only trap anyone seems to have fallen into is thinking that one cannot
be a defender of Assange’s rights as a political prisoner and also advocate that he face justice with respect to the assault
allegations.

On a recent trip to London I went by the Ecuadorian embassy and interviewed some
Assange supporters keeping vigil. One
was a woman, and I was particularly interested in her reasons for being
there. Although I directed my questions
to her, her male counterpart interjected to answer, while she nodded along. “Well,” he said, “We’re here because we’re
anti-war, anti-imperialism, and pro-free speech.” He then launched into a monologue on the history
of extradition treaties, beginning in the fourteenth century (?!).

“I’m interested in more current events,” I finally interrupted, and turned
to her again.

“To bring you up to the 1950s,” he continued, “Blah blah blah reformed
extradition treaty of 1979 between the U.K. and Ireland…”

“That’s interesting,” I said, “but I’m focusing on recent events.” I asked her if she was involved with the
Occupy movement.

“Then in the 1990s, — wait, Occupy?
Yes, yes, in fact I was the spokesman for...”

I moved between them to face her.
“It’s a shame,” she said, “But it’s pretty clear they were
infiltrated.”

“In fact, I gave a 45 minute interview on...”

“I find it difficult,” I said to her, “to defend the rights of Assange
without getting pushback on the rape allegations.” She reached into a folder and handed me a
printout of the Women Against
Rape editorial. “Here,” she
said. “This is key.”

“... because, you see, the United States is not a signatory to the ICC...”

I thanked them both for their protest work and said goodbye. As I walked away he was still talking.

Unfortunately, women are entirely used to being dismissed and lectured to by
men. (There’s a good word for
that.) It seems to be particularly
common in the context of political discussions. Thus it is problematic that the Fleeing Rapist
narrative is so ubiquitous in the feminist blogosphere, and so effective at
derailing discussion of other implications of the Assange case. To the extent that those things are in
conflict, only the Swedish government has the power to resolve it — today.